Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (62) Ten thousand horses galloping ahead - 万马奔腾 （萬馬奔騰）

 万马奔腾 (萬馬奔騰）is a famous Chinese proverb, means "Ten Thousand horses gallop forward".

Explanation for the characters in the artwork from top to bottom.

1,  

 Small seal script of character Ten Thousand, which is a scorpion with many feet. Experts believe that there were too many scorpions in the ancient time, so use it to be a big number. 

2,

 

Small seal script of character Horse

3, 

Big seal script of character Rush or Running. 

The top is a person who is running, the bottom are three feet. Why three not two? Because when something is moving very fast, you could not see it clearly, such as the steel bars on bicycle wheels, you only see the blur of them. Ancient Chinese use three feet to represent the person is running too fast to see his feet clearly.

4, 

Big seal script of character Soar. 

The left is a boat, the right top is fire (torch), the middle are two hands holding the torch, the bottom is a horse. Actually, the boat + torch + hands form a character of King, who is riding a horse gallops ahead, leading a big army forward.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (61) Walk Horse and Watch Flowers - 走马观花

The post has been collected in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" published on Amazon as Paper book (Hardcover, and Paperback), and eBook. You could click the following link to get the information on Amazon,

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy

Or you could search "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon to find the book.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (60) Flying Sand and Walking Stones - 飞沙走石

 

"Flying sand and walking stone" is a famous Chinese proverb, which describes how a powerful storm could be like.

Characters are in the artwork.

1, Fly or Flying, big seal script

which is a flying bird.

2, Sand, big seal script

The left is character Water

the middle is river, the four dots are water drops. ancient Chinese got water from the river, so river + water drops = character water. 

other four dots are sand, which means that the sand is located near the river (on the beach). I added much more sand in the air.

3, Walk or Walking, bronze script

the top is a person who is walking, the bottom is a foot.

4, Stone, big seal script

 厂 means the cliff, the   口 is the stone, which is quarried from a cliff of mountain. I added many more rolling stones

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (60) Fantastic Dream - 梦幻

 

The characters in the artwork.

1, Fantastic or Fantasy (Bronze script)

A spider web or part of spider web hangs on a branch. After raining, the spider web got wet, which could be a riot of color under sunshine, a dreamlike world

2, Dream (Shell bone script)

The left is a person, the right one is a bed. A person is sleeping and dreaming on a bed.

The character is vertical because, in shell bone time (3000+ years ago), people didn't have paper, they wrote or drew the characters on bamboo slips, which are very narrow, difficult to write horizontally. People had to write or draw many characters vertically, the character Dream is one of them.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (59) Forward, Match! - 齐步走！

The post has been collected in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" published on Amazon as Paper book (Hardcover, and Paperback), and eBook. You could click the following link to get the information on Amazon,

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy

Or you could search "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon to find the book.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (58) The Rains - 雨水

About 2200 years ago in Han Dynast, Chinese created "The 24 solar terms" to divide the year to 24 periods according to the earth revolving around the sun, each term is about 15 days. About the same time, Han Dynast, Chinese create Lunar Year which follows the moon revolving around the earth. Most people knew or heard Lunar Year, but few knew The 24 Solar Terms, but Chinese has engaged in agricultural production according to 24 solar terms for more than 2200 years. 

The first term is Spring beginning around February 6,  the second term is The Rains around February 21 , ....... The Rains of 2021 is February 18 - people expect spring rains getting more. It is the weather in ancient time, not the same as nowadays. So we may not see spring rains during and after The Rains term.

Today is The day of The Rain, I created a new calligraphy artwork:"The Rains":

There are two characters in the artwork.

1, Rain - 雨, big seal script.

2, Water - 水，shell bone script

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (57) Lower Mountain could be more famous if there is immortal - 山不在高，有仙则名

 

A famous Chinese poet says "山不在高，有仙则名“，meaning "Lower Mountain could be more famous if there is immortal".

The Chinese characters in the above artwork:

1, Mountain - shell bone script

2, Cloud - shell bone script 

3, Immortal - small seal script.

    

    Immortal in song typeface: 仙. 

    The left is Person radical, the right is Mountain, meaning that the immortal is the person who lives in the mountain.

    The original small seal script is very complicated. Based on the song typeface and the typical small seal script strokes, I created the new small seal script as the one in the top right in the artwork. The left is the person who is facing left, and the right is the mountain.